Schools
Student Auction Action
Students in the television production program at Swampscott High School are preparing for their biggest event of the year, a live television auction, May 23-26. It sustains their program.
Another day the students in this TV production class would be shooting footage, hunkered at editing bays or merging audio with visuals for a music video.
But today they brainstorm for their upcoming auction, May 23-26.
The on-air bidding sustains the program, footing 98 percent of its cost, paying for everything from batteries to cameras, instructor says.
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His students, sunk low in begged and maybe borrowed couches, listen to him encourage them to seek donated items.
“I want to compliment Kyle on getting out there and getting a donation,” he says.
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A student’s dad, an electrician, has donated two hours labor.
Student George Major’s band, The Dupes, have graciously donated a date with the entire band.
The date includes dinner and a movie. Maybe dancing if things go well, he says.
Popular auction items include Red Sox tickets, museum passes, art lessons.
Student Noah Conti has created a couple of web pages for the auction.
The pages list items for auction, explains why the event is being held and updates bidding.
He shows the class two designs. They critique them.
“This is more like school, more like English class,” student Maggie Upham says of one web page.
The other page is more dynamic, like television, she says.
The students have opinions about lots of things. At one point they debate the relative comfort of their couches that line three sides of the four-square studio.
Reid chronicles the couches origins — where they came from.
The focus, however, remains on the job at hand, planning for 12-hours of the live TV auction.
The event is the student station’s most watched event of the year.
It will run each night, Monday through Thursday, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m..
It’s on Channel 15 in Swampscott on Comcast and on Channel 40 in Swampscott, Nahant and Lynn on Verizon.
SHS-TV got funding through the town’s licensing agreement with cable companies to build a studio in 1995 and a new one in 2005, Reid said.
But the program will receive no more money from a cable company, the school or the town until 2015, he said.
That’s what makes the auction crucial.
It funds classes including media literacy and TV production for about 75 students.
It allows advanced students, such as this class, to pursue advanced projects, shooting documentaries, even a soap opera.
In two weeks students will be on camera at telephones, taking bids.
For more information about the auction call TV production teacher Tom Reid at 781-941-0007 or email him at reid@Swampscott.k12.ma.us
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